Re: Preferred language?

Sergio Tortosa Benedito wrote:
> As much as I see you seem to have Perl knowledge, so from your point of
> view (be as subjective as you want :) ), which one is more "readable"?
>  (whatever you understand that means), I'm initially asking in a Perl vs
> Python, but feel free to add any language you consider.

There is a learning curve in any language. For me, perl is
more readable to me, because I'm used to its conventions.

One thing that is more complicated in perl, is the notion of
context. For example, the function localtime() will return a
list of values if assigned to an array, or a datetime string
if assigned to a scalar.

$now = localtime(); # Sun Mar 29 13:43:32 2015
@now = localtime(); # 9,43,13,29,2,115,0,87,0

I did do some packaging and maintenance work on a python
application once. It forced me to learn a little of 
the python syntax, and I think it's reasonable,
but there are some gotchas.

Having whitespace define code blocks seems fragile to 
me. Matched braces make it easy to find the beginning
and end of the code block. With matched braces, you
don't have to change indents when moving code, so 
your version-control commits can be cleaner.

But I will frankly admit that those were not criteria
that brought me to use perl to begin with. (I wanted
to learn one language, instead of shell, sed and awk.)

One other issue in choosing python is selecting version 2
or version 3.

https://wiki.python.org/moin/Python2orPython3

Generally, you want version 3 for unicode support,
but some libraries aren't yet ported to version 3.

Perl 5 vs. 6 faces some similar issues. Perl 6 represents
far deeper and more radical changes over its predecessor
than Python 3. And few libraries are available. However
tools are being developed to use perl 5 libraries under perl
6, and vice versa.

Finally, because perl syntax is more complicated than
pythons (there, I said it!) there is lots of ongoing work to
be able to modify and transform syntax. Some perl OO
scaffoldings and frameworks take advantage of this.  That
there are so many such frameworks is considered a minus by
some. However, it also indicates a richness are of
technology development.

You learn what you need.

Hey, well, keep us posted what you find out!

Joel


 
> --Sergio
 
> 2015-03-29 21:17 GMT+02:00 Joel Roth <[email protected]>:
> 
> > I had written:
> >
> > > > The best references (no pun intended) for perl nowadays are
> > > > Learning Perl by Randal Schwartz, Modern Perl by chromatic,
> > > > Beginning Perl by Curtis Poe. The latter two are free to
> > > > download.
> >
> > Sergio Tortosa Benedito wrote:
> > > Hey thanks I'll try to read them (I'm taking modern perl as it seems to
> > be
> > > more direct, though I guessed that only eith the title so I may be off
> > > track).
> >
> > They're great books written by great programmers.
> >
> > Oh, and one other reference for perl is the Perl Monks
> > website, http://perlmonks.org . Useful to search, and a
> > friendly community. If you can post sample code and a clear
> > question, you will almost certainly receive help!
> >
> > Back to the question of languages, I believe Python
> > is somewhat easier than Perl for calling into C libraries.
> > For day-to-day scripting, I think you can use pretty much
> > any language you like, whatever fits your mind better.
> >
> > (They say for a flexible mind, you should learn several
> > languages.)
> >
> > cheers,
> >
> > Joel
> >
> >
> > --
> > Joel Roth
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > gobolinux-users mailing list
> > [email protected]
> > http://lists.gobolinux.org/mailman/listinfo/gobolinux-users
> >

-- 
Joel Roth